Movie Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and Three Better Ways to Spend Your Money at the Movies

by Tony Dayoub

No big surprise. A Nightmare on Elm Street, the unnecessary remake of Wes Craven's 1984 hallucinatory slasher film opening tomorrow has nothing new to offer. You know this film is headed in the wrong direction literally from the start, with a misguided opening credit design that looks like it started as near-illegible chalk scrawls on a sidewalk, but ends up visually echoed by redundant white on black credits as a corrective. And the film goes downhill from there. My frequent criticism of remakes is, why revisit a decent film if it won't be improved? In Samuel Bayer's reboot, the overt sexual paranoia of the original's promiscuous kids is neutered into a hollow exploration of pedophilia simply to give the illusion of topicality.

Blu-ray Review: Criterion's Vivre Sa Vie (1962) and Summer Hours (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

Were you one of the mob who rushed to buy the movie-only Avatar (2009) disc oh so cannily released on Earth Day? Why would you when it's already been announced that Cameron plans a more extensive edition containing extra footage within a year, and a 3D Blu-ray by 2012? Especially the last one since the science fiction film is so inextricably dependent on 3D immersion to tell its story effectively. In this age of double—and now triple—dips by Hollywood studios in order to maximize the profits they see vanishing as the whole business model of film distribution and release changes, it is gratifying to see one label, Criterion, hone in on films which advance the art of telling a story over productions which simply accelerate the visual technology used to illustrate the bare minimum of a plot. And Criterion usually gets it right the first time, double dipping only in rare cases where a better quality print has been restored for a film in often dire need of such a thing. Two of the most recent examples of Criterion's concern with its product presentation, Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live) and Summer Hours (L'Heure d'été), have only one tenuous tie (they're both in French) but are fully deserving of one's attention over the most recent Hollywood blockbuster.

FIRST LOOK - TV Review: You Don't Know Jack

by Tony Dayoub

HBO's You Don't Know Jack follows the rise and fall of "Dr. Death" in the media as he championed the cause of doctor-assisted suicide in the 1990s. It is probably director Barry Levinson's most memorable film since Wag the Dog (1997). But the real triumph belongs to the marvelous Al Pacino (Carlito's Way) who, as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, gives his most nuanced performance in nearly twenty years.

Movie Review: The Ghost Writer (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

In The Ghost Writer, the British Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former prime minister under attack for playing crony to the U.S. and its interests in the Iraq War, is beset by protesters who attack him for aiding and abetting the torture of Muslim POWs. While contending with the suspicious death of writer Mike McAra who was ghosting his memoirs, Lang rides out the tempest in Cape Cod with his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams); his assistant and possible mistress, Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall); and new to the mix, the unnamed ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) who replaces McAra.